If you’re a first-time founder, you’ve probably realized this already: hiring the right people is harder than raising money. Most startups don’t fail because of funding. They fail because they can’t build the right team.
Here’s what we think really works (and what has worked for many successful founders we’ve spoken with):
1. Hire through your own Network
Your network is your strongest hiring engine - especially for senior roles. Don’t underestimate the power of a simple LinkedIn or even Instagram post. People in corporate jobs are often frustrated with bureaucracy and secretly looking for their “startup break.” When they see a founder they trust, they’re willing to take the leap. Zerodha’s Nithin Kamath has shared how early team members came through personal networks, not recruiters. Their trust in him and his vision was the hook.
2. Look beyond Tier I Colleges
Chasing IITs and IIMs can drain your energy and budget. Instead, empower fresh talent from Tier II and Tier III colleges. Zoho famously recruits from rural colleges in Tamil Nadu, trains them and now runs a billion-dollar business with a deeply loyal workforce. This is frugality as well as smart thinking.
3. Keep the team Lean & multi-Hatted
A startup isn’t a corporate. Things will be messy, and that’s okay. Encourage your team to wear multiple hats—operations, product, marketing, sales, even customer success. With AI tools, this is easier than ever. Recently, we met a founder who listed his team on tinyteams.xyz - a platform showcasing startups that stay lean and scrappy. Basecamp (37signals) has been profitable for decades with a small, multi-skilled team—proving that lean can be powerful.
4. Be honest about Founder's Office roles
If you’re hiring for an all-rounder, don’t sugarcoat it. Call it a Founder’s Office role. These positions attract ambitious people who want high learning curves and direct founder exposure. Communities like Founder’s Office Club help connect startups with such talent.
5. Rethink Tech Hiring
Hiring a senior tech team early can burn your runway. Instead, outsource the first version, keep 1-2 junior in-house developers and let them learn by shadowing consultants until they’re ready to take over. Also, if AI can build your tech, then go the AI way. This way, you balance speed, cost and skill-building. Airbnb’s early MVP was built by outsourced developers, while the founders focused on design and customer experience.
6. Hire Slow, Fire Fast
Toxic hires can kill culture faster than lack of funding. Always do background checks for senior roles, even if it slows you down. Many YC founders say their biggest regret is not firing underperformers fast enough - it drags down everyone’s morale.
7. Understand Gen Z & Gen Alpha
If your team is young, speak their language. Be open to their culture—it breaks the ice and creates a stress-free environment. Be used to Gen-Z lingo like “situationship” from my Gen Z team. It sounds funny, but these moments build connection.
8. Reward beyond ESOPs
While ESOPs sound exciting, most employees worry about the uncertainty. Instead, try:
Smaller, more frequent appraisals (don’t wait a year).
Profit-sharing or revenue-linked incentives.
Recognition in real-time.
Even a 10% surprise increment for great work can do more than a long-term ESOP. Freshworks scaled by giving early recognition and responsibility to young talent - not just equity promises.
Final Thoughts
Hiring as a founder is not about big cheques. It’s about trust, empowerment, and shared vision.
At Malpani Ventures, we’ve seen this across our portfolio - frugal, smart hiring beats flashy packages any day. If you’re a founder struggling with hiring or building culture, we’d love to connect and share what’s worked for other startups we’ve funded.
Every founder reaches a stage where you have a few well known customers, some steady paying accounts, and proof that your product works. At this point the main question changes from “Can we sell?” to “How do we sell more, faster, and smarter?”
Here are some simple ways to think about sales productivity when you are at this stage.
Early sales usually depend on the founder pushing hard, using networks, and making one-off pitches. That is normal. But as the customer base grows, productivity comes from building a clear and repeatable sales process.
Write down each step of the sales journey from first call to closing.
Set clear rules for what a good lead looks like.
Standardize how you present, demo, and talk about pricing so every new hire can learn quickly.
This is about moving from one-time efforts to systems that scale.
Growth is not only about signing new customers. It is also about making sure existing ones stay happy and use your product more deeply. This is where a customer success team makes a big difference.
Ask customers what they wish your product could do better.
Track usage and spot accounts where adoption is dropping.
Feed this back to the sales team so new prospects hear how you improved based on real customer needs.
Customer success helps both retention and learning.
Happy customers are often the best salespeople.
Collect case studies and success stories.
Invite customers to share their journey in webinars or events.
Build a referral program where they bring peers.
Each proof point makes it easier for new prospects to trust you.
Not all customers bring equal value. Once you have a base, avoid chasing every lead. Focus your sales energy on:
Segments where your product is clearly stronger than others.
Customers who can grow with you.
Accounts that become “lighthouse” examples for others in the same industry.
Directing effort toward high impact accounts multiplies productivity.
Sales productivity is not only about doing more deals. It is about learning faster. Make sure insights from sales calls and customer success reach the product and leadership teams.
Hold weekly syncs between sales and customer success.
Share notes on what customers are saying in one place.
Try small experiments with pricing, packaging, or onboarding to remove friction.
The tighter the feedback loop, the faster your pitch and product improve.
At this stage, growth is not just about adding logos. It is about turning learnings into systems and customers into advocates. By moving from hustle to structure, and by working with customers rather than only selling to them, founders can get the most out of their sales effort and prepare for the next phase of scale.
When a startup begins moving from pilots into commercialization, pricing can feel like guesswork. You know you can’t give the product away, but you also don’t want to scare away early customers. The reality is that pricing is not fixed at this stage. It’s something you adjust as you prove value and build confidence in the market.
In the early days, your pricing doesn’t need to be the “final number.” What matters is getting customers on board, showing results, and learning what they are willing to pay. You can start lower than your long-term target- just make sure customers know this is early-adopter pricing.
Your costs should act as a floor, but customers don’t care how much it costs you to build. They care about what they get out of it. Ask yourself: What problem am I solving for them? How much time, money, or effort am I saving? That gives you a sense of how much you can reasonably charge.
Being the only product in your space means you set the reference point. Price too low and you may struggle to raise it later. Price too high and adoption may stall. A safe option is to charge a fair early price today while leaving yourself room to move upward as more proof builds.
Whatever price you set, make sure there’s a path to increase it later. This could be through clear tiers, usage-based pricing, or by separating “pilot” from “commercial” pricing in contracts. Don’t let your first price lock you in.
Customers are often more flexible than founders expect if you’re clear with them. Framing your price as “introductory” or “pilot” makes it easier to adjust later. The key is to be upfront- people dislike surprises, not change.
Think of pricing as a series of tests. Ask yourself after each sale: Did the customer accept too quickly? Did they push back hard? Did they see enough value to pay more? Use those answers to fine-tune.
Early pricing is less about squeezing out maximum revenue and more about finding the right balance between adoption and long-term potential. Start simple, learn fast, and adjust as your product and market mature.
Most founders think of their startup journey as building a product and finding customers. But a smarter way to look at it is through a product funnel- the structured journey that turns early adopters into loyal users.
No matter what you’re building, your product funnel is already there. The real question is whether you understand it, measure it, and keep improving it.
At its simplest, a product funnel describes the steps a customer takes before they become a repeat buyer or advocate. Typically, it follows this order:
Awareness – discovering that your product exists
Activation – trying it for the first time
Engagement – coming back again
Conversion – deciding to pay, subscribe, or commit
Retention & Advocacy – sticking around and recommending it to others
While the labels may differ across industries, the logic holds: more people enter at the top than make it through to the bottom.
Don’t borrow funnel definitions blindly. For a D2C brand, “activation” might be the first purchase. For a SaaS product, it might be completing the onboarding tutorial. For a café, it could be trying the food once.
The principle: Your funnel stages must reflect what “progress” looks like for your customer.
Founders often drown in data but miss the signals. Pick one key metric per stage:
Awareness → number of qualified leads or website visitors
Activation → % of visitors who try or sign up
Engagement → frequency of repeat use in the first week/month
Conversion → free-to-paid conversion rate
Retention → customer lifetime value (CLV) or repeat purchase rate
The principle: Less but sharper measurement drives focus.
Every funnel leaks & users drop off. The founder’s role is to identify the stage with the largest leak and fix it before scaling. For example:
If 80% of sign-ups never return, onboarding is broken.
If people love the product but won’t pay, pricing or value proposition needs work.
The principle: Don’t pour more into the top until the bottom is sealed.
It’s tempting to obsess about growth at the top (ads, PR, traffic). But a funnel without strong engagement and retention is like filling a bucket with holes. The best startups invest as much in keeping users as in getting new ones.
The principle: A balanced funnel beats a wide funnel.
Each stage of the funnel is a chance to test hypotheses:
Will a shorter sign-up form improve activation?
Does sending a reminder email after 24 hours increase engagement?
Will a free sample nudge conversion?
The principle: A funnel is not designed once- it’s continuously experimented on.
Behind every stage is a customer making an emotional decision: curiosity, trust, satisfaction, loyalty. A funnel that works only at the numbers level but ignores the customer’s feelings will always struggle.
The principle: The strongest funnels are built around trust and delight.
A clear product funnel gives founders three superpowers:
Clarity– You know exactly where growth is breaking down.
Focus– Your team works on the highest-leverage problems.
Compounding Returns– Small improvements at each stage multiply into outsized results over time.
Whether you’re running a mobile app, a D2C brand, a SaaS platform, or even a local business, your product funnel exists. Founders who actively shape it will grow faster and more sustainably than those who leave it to chance.